Is GGG is an all-time top 5 middleweight?

That's garbage. In March 2010 Felix Sturm had the WBA Belt and paid the WBA to make him super champ to avoid his mandatory vs Golovkin.
Every boxing Fan with knowledge calls this a ducking. GGG was mandatory and already deserved a WBA titlechance in 2009. Daniel Geale ducked Golovkin too and fought old Mundine instead of Golovkin. At least at the end of 2012 Golovkin was the only WBA beltholder.
So if you really count Sturm as the Champion from 2010-2012 that would be at least 14 titledefences from Golovkin.

https://www.espn.com/blog/dan-rafael/post/_/id/2292/geale-golovkin-a-no-go-for-now

 

So in short, GGG has nine defences

 

That is your count and its still a lot. I count 20+ title defenses and he's still going. Besides its generally assumed that GGG vs Sturm would be a destruction, no way could Strum hold off a prime GGG.

 

Oh yeah, GGG beat Canelo,you do recognize him dont you?

 

No, they are totally different.

 

No it isn't.

Neither are titles.

 

Somebody has to be the best.
I would probably say Greb.

 

greb, yes.

 

Hopkins needs no excuses. Everything is in it's place. He had the better 160 career than GGG and virtually all the best minds and posters agree. George has spelt it out in a very simple concise way.

Irrelevant. Briggs was lineal for 5 minutes and never defended it, Hopkins for 5 years with multiple defenses. GGG was lineal for.........oh hang on.

There were multiple fighters rated over GGG in the years before Canelo ever became the ring champ or indeed lineal. Years went by and he didn't establish himself as numero uno whilst Hopkins did.

George has spelt this out.

Hopkins disposed of a truckload of fighters. He established himself as the top dog for longer in the division and had the more reputable defenses overall.

He beat Hopkins by decision in a fight where quite a few were impressed with Hopkins with an eye to the future. All three scores were 116-112. Hopkins didn't hit his best for years after that where as Roy went on an immediate tear.

Multiple guys were rated over GGG over multiple years and then there's that lineal thing

Pure and utter opinion. Dino expanded on this amateur thing in post 134 so i refer you to that. He put forward a decent debate actually.

Anyway we are going around in circles on the same things mate so i will let you have the final post on the matter

 

Hopkins has not had the better career at 160 and I'm talking to you not "that other guy". Everytime you stumble over your feet you deflect and evade. Why bring up amateur fights if you are then of the opinion they have no bearing whatsoever on the pro career?

Irrelevant is what I think of the lineal title, pretty much the same as you think of Briggs. If everybody is avoiding you like they avoid the bubonic plague, you will never get to fight for said lineal title.

Who TF ever avoided Hopkins? Meanwhile guys like Sturm had their sanctioning bodies invent entirely new belts so that they didn't have to fight GGG. Once Golovkin eventually actually had the belts, and people were forced to fight him he defended successfully against the guys that beat the guys that were avoiding him.

I'm talking to you, not him.

See, now that's an opinion. Factually Golovkin has more defences. Equally factually a lot of Hopkins' defences were re-runs and not high level re-runs either. Echols is not the stuff upon which greatness is built. He ended up with a 32-22-4 record. Robert Allen was three of Hopkins' defences. And speaking of which one of those was a no contest which is a weak excuse for counting as a successful defence.

Golovkin has only Canelo as a re-run. That's a difficult defence of the highest order. I guess Hopkins gave Taylor two shots and we know what happened there. 2 losses at middleweight. GGG> Taylor.

So the "Hopkins was green" excuse

1) Dino cries to the mods like a little ***** if I tear him apart so I'm not responding to that
2) I'm talking to you

 

/thread

 

Personally....I think he should have moved up in weight a long time ago

 

I agree with a lot of your other points but this one seems perhaps a little off.
Strictly speaking Hopkins wasn't quite arrived at his absolute peak/prime years, but neither was Jones really.

There's no harm in admitting Jones was simply better than Hopkins, in 1993 and prime-for-prime. He beats Hopkins any year after that up until about 2002, most likely.

 

This one has come up many times over the years. As I've always said Jones was way ahead of Hopkins development at this point. Hopkins was a slow burner who took quite a while to get to his peak form. He was a cerebral fighter old school type who came through the hard way. Jones was quite the opposite - a genetic freak who relied on godlike speed and reflexes and also just happened to have huge power as well to round out the package. Hopkins probably hit his peak around 2001 where as Jones by the time he left middleweight via the devastating KO of Thomas Tate 12 months after he beat Hopkins was as great (or oh so close to it) as he was ever going to be. Next fight he all but shut out Toney in probably his greatest moment ever in the ring.

So Jones was well ahead of Hopkins due to both style and talent disparity. There's also no harm in admitting Hopkins improved a lot more than Jones did after their fight and steadily more than vertically.

Am i saying Hopkins at his greatest beats Jones at the time he left 160? Not for a second but he'd certainly be more industrious even if Jones great speed and talent overcame that again. I wouldn't guffaw at anyone picking Hopkins to win but it'd be an uphill sell to me and I'd be favoring Jones for sure.

I'm not sure I'd favor any middleweight ever to beat the Jones that departed 160 to be frank. He was a real supernova.

 

He just looked unreal against Tate in his last fight at MW and then he proved later that year against Toney just how good he was.

This was a guy that had boxed almost since he could walk and heavily reliant on his almost absurd athleticism, so it stands to reason that he would peak when he did so physically in his mid 20's.

Personally, I think that Tito was right at the end of Hopkins peak.